BUSAN (South Korea), Nov 18: Leaders from across the Asia-Pacific region held a summit on Friday to give new impetus to deadlocked trade talks and the fight against bird flu, as police clashed with anti-US protesters.

The 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders — including US President George Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao — are meeting in South Korea for two days to discuss pressing global issues.

As well as appealing for intensive efforts to ensure the success of the Dec 13-18 World Trade Organization talks (WTO) in Hong Kong, the leaders will address bird flu, terrorism, North Korea and energy security.

As the motorcades of the presidents and prime ministers swept into the high-tech BEXCO exhibition centre in the southern city of Busan, around 10,000 farmers and anti-globalization protesters gathered nearby.

Chanting anti-US slogans and waving colourful banners reading ‘No APEC, No Bush’ and ‘Terrorist Bush Go Home’, the crowd, some armed with metal pipes, faced off with thousands of riot police ringing the centre.

On two occasions hundreds of hardcore protesters tried to punch through lines of riot police guarding bridges over the Suyeong River to reach the APEC meeting, triggering violent clashes and volleys of water cannon which left several people injured.

APEC countries account for nearly 60 per cent of global trade, and the leaders were to issue a statement on Saturday calling for compromise on farm subsidies to prevent the so-called Doha round of WTO talks from collapsing.

“Unless progress is made in this area, we cannot make progress in the round as a whole,” says a draft of the statement.

“Avoiding or compromising our ambition on this issue would mean we would lower expectations for the round as a whole.”

Asia-Pacific nations have become embroiled in an acrimonious war of words with the European Union, and South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon said APEC felt it was up to the EU to make a new offer on agriculture.

“They are basically saying that now the ball is in Europe’s court and they are asking for a very active and flexible attitude in negotiations from the Europeans,” Ban told reporters after the first session of talks.

He said APEC leaders would sign off on the “very strong message” on Saturday that the Hong Kong WTO meeting cannot be allowed to fail. But calls by Australia and Canada to harden the statement were rebuffed, Ban said.

The EU has refused to match a US offer on cutting farm subsidies, instead making a “bottom line” offer earlier this month to cut the bloc’s overall tariff rate from 23 percent to 12 percent.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has this week rebuffed APEC pressure and insisted Europe would not be making a new offer.

Bird flu is also an urgent topic which will be addressed Saturday, with China struggling to contain new outbreaks and two more deaths recorded in the past week in Indonesia, another APEC nation.

Prime Minister John Howard flagged a new Australian initiative in a speech here and made thinly-veiled criticism of Thailand, China and Vietnam for being slow to report the extent of outbreaks in 2003 and 2004.

Howard stressed the importance of preparing for a pandemic and “of putting aside any sense of national pride or self-consciousness about any outbreak in individual countries”.

Over 60 human deaths from bird flu have been recorded in APEC member countries since the end of 2003, namely in Thailand, Indonesia, China and worst-hit Vietnam.—AFP